Blinken meets Egyptian leaders in bid to press hostage-ceasefire deal
In wake of Lebanon pager blasts, Sissi says Cairo opposes moves to escalate and expand war; Blinken praises Egypt as partner for peace and security in region
An escalation of tensions in the Middle East over the detonation of Hezbollah members’ pagers threatened to overshadow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s latest regional diplomacy push, as he met senior Egyptian officials on Wednesday hoping to advance efforts to secure a hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza and improve ties with Cairo.
The top US diplomat’s visit comes with the region on high alert due to the risk of the Israel-Hamas war expanding, after the Hezbollah terror group accused Israel of detonating pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday and promised to retaliate.
Israel has declined to respond to questions about the explosions. At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 were wounded.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told Blinken in their meeting on Wednesday morning that Egypt opposed attempts to “escalate the conflict and expand its scope regionally” and called for all parties to act responsibly, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
Sissi and Blinken “exchanged views on ways to intensify joint efforts between Egypt, the US and Qatar to make progress on ceasefire negotiations and the exchange of hostages and detainees,” the statement read.
Blinken later held talks with other Egyptian officials including Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. In brief remarks, the US top diplomat did not address events in Lebanon but praised Egypt as a partner “for regional peace, regional stability, regional security,” including its role in Gaza hostage-ceasefire talks.
“We all know that a ceasefire is the best chance to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to address risks to regional stability,” he told journalists at a joint press conference in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday said it was too early to say whether the attack in Lebanon would affect the talks.
US officials have for weeks said a new proposal would be presented soon for a deal including the release of hostages kidnapped from Israel by the Hamas terror group on October 7, 2023.
Months of negotiations have not succeeded in reaching a deal for the return of the 101 hostages still believed to be held captive in Gaza, more than 11 months after Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, launching the ongoing war.
Blinken will head from Cairo to Paris on Thursday for a meeting with the foreign ministers of France, Italy, and Britain to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine and other issues, a State Department official said. Blinken will also meet French President Emmanuel Macron, the official said.
Blinken will not visit Israel on this trip, the first time he has skipped a stop in Washington’s closest regional ally since Hamas sparked the war in Gaza nearly a year ago.
Miller said that was because Washington aimed to discuss bilateral issues with Egypt on this trip and the hostage-ceasefire deal proposal that the US and mediators have been working on was still not ready to present to Israel.
One of the main sticking points in the previous draft deal, which Israel had agreed to on May 27, was the issue of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel maintain a security presence along the route, arguing that withdrawing from the key route would enable Hamas to rearm itself with weapons smuggled into the Palestinian enclave from Egypt. Hamas, however, has said that it will accept nothing less than a full withdrawal.
The prime minister has come under intense pressure, both in Israel and abroad, to soften this position, pressure that only grew after six hostages were executed by their Hamas captors in a tunnel in Rafah at the end of August.
The murders, which occurred just days before IDF troops found and extracted their bodies, brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets demanding a deal, saying that it must happen even if it required painful concessions.
Egypt, alongside Qatar, has been a vital intermediary in US-led diplomacy to end the war, shuttling proposals and counterproposals between Hamas and Israel.
In its decades-long alliance with Egypt, Washington has provided billions of dollars’ worth of military aid, despite accusations of widespread abuses under Sissi’s government. Egypt’s government denies the accusations.
A nod to Cairo’s increased influence came last week when Blinken waived human rights conditions in US foreign military financing to Egypt and allowed the full amount of $1.3 billion to go through, for the first time since US President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Seth Binder, director of advocacy for the Washington-based Middle East Democracy Center, said the Biden administration had “completely abandoned any pretense that human rights matter to the relationship.”
